Our annual conference is always one of my favourite times of the year, and the 2019 edition was no exception.

There’s something very special about getting nearly 400 people from our network, spread around the UK and the globe as we are, together in one place – whether they’re employees, associates or alumni. It’s a reminder that our shared values aren’t just words on a page.

Here comes the science bit

We held this year’s conference in a brand new event space within London’s Science Museum, a venue that managed to be just as interesting as the talks on stage. As well as wonderful views across the city’s skyline, we had private access to the museum’s Wonder Lab – a thoroughly inspiring collection of mind-bending physics and chemistry experiments. Some of those can be seen in these video highlights from the evening:

Inspiration is what our conference is all about. Our MC and colleague Dan Mitchell had a few very inspiring words and brought that extra touch that made the evening so special.

This year our keynote came from the celebrated author and speaker Simon Singh, who shared stories from his book The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets. It’s fair to say this look at the hidden world of maths and numbers on show in Springfield hit right up the street for a room full of software engineers!

Why and how

With so many of us present, I took the opportunity to reflect on Equal Experts’ ‘why and how’, as my personal journey as founder has naturally shaped the organisation’s purpose: why do we do what we do?

However, this is not about setting an aspirational goal that we want to achieve in the fullness of time. This is very much about who we are on our best day, today. Therefore I need feedback from all the members of the network – including associates and customers – when we live up to our Why and when we fall short.

Then, together with my co-CEO Jon Dickinson and COO Sam McGregor, we shared some thinking on the role of the new Exec team and what we want EE focus to be in the next 12 months… and I hope those present will agree we didn’t hog the stage for too long before we gave way to a night of catching up.

Round it all off with some delicious food and drink (themed around the cuisine of countries with Equal Experts offices), and the night was another resounding success. Sincere thanks to all involved, whether on stage, behind the scenes, or attending. See you in 2020.